Upton Sinclair, ed. (1878–1968).
The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest. 1915. | | | Doubt
(From “The Present Hour”) |
By Percy Mackaye |
(American poet and dramatist, born 1875. One of a group of six sonnets, entitled “Carnage,” written in September, 1914) |
| | | SO thin, so frail the opalescent ice | |
| Where yesterday, in lordly pageant, rose | |
| The monumental nations—the repose | |
| Of continents at peace! Realities | |
| Solid as earth they seemed; yet in a trice | 5 |
| Their bastions crumbled in the surging floes | |
| Of unconceivable, inhuman woes, | |
| Gulfed in a mad, unmeaning sacrifice. | |
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| We, who survive that world-quake, cower and start, | |
| Searching our hidden souls with dark surmise: | 10 |
| So thin, so frail—is reason? Patient art— | |
| Is it all a mockery, and love all lies? | |
| Who sees the lurking Hun in childhood’s eyes? | |
| Is hell so near to every human heart? | | | | |
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